"I went to see Tracey to address concerns with anxiety and confidence. My sessions examined the thoughts through my week that I found stressful and helped to eradicate these, and relax my anxiety around the prevailing issues that I had.

Tracey made me feel completely at ease in her company, and her analysis and treatment of my concerns with my confidence, allowed me to move forward with my life and gave me the courage and support to finally make decisions that make me happy. Tracey helped to change the prevailing negative thoughts that I had about myself and future, with replace them with positive ones."

Is my problem confidence or self esteem?

Often when people seek the help of a therapist they confuse the terms ‘confidence’ and ‘self esteem.’

People who have low self esteem are usually not good at or unable to value themselves correctly. They often compare themselves with others and judge themselves to be inferior or inadequate in some way. Although this may lead to a subsequent lack of confidence it is nevertheless distinct and separate.

Self confidence is actually a feeling of trust in one’s own abilities and self judgement. Many people who claim to be unconfident are actually generalising their condition. Confidence begins to make more sense when linked to a specific skill or ability and what people are usually referring to is a lack of social skills, or feeling shy in social situations, or meeting new people. Self-confidence is not necessarily a general characteristic which pervades all aspects of a person’s life. Typically, individuals will usually have some areas of their lives where they feel quite confident, their job perhaps, while at the same time they do not feel at all confident in other areas such as their personal appearance or social relationships.

Surprisingly, lack of self-confidence is not necessarily related to lack of ability. Instead it is often the result of focusing too much on unrealistic expectations or standards.

What to look for?

Symptoms of low self confidence vary from individual to individual but you might recognise some of the common symptoms, which include:

Feeling low or down, often leading to depression

Staying away from social situations or activities

Avoiding situations where you might feel judged, such as a competition, social events, public speaking etc

Feeling anxious or helpless

Feeling isolated and lonely

Feeling unable to cope or manage in certain situations.

Feeling inadequate to perform certain tasks or skills

The symptoms of low self confidence usually perpetuate the condition. If an individual prevents themselves from doing something because they do not feel they are good enough to participate they will only re-enforce their negative beliefs and feelings. Just as feelings of low self confidence can lead to depression, suffering with depression only exaggerates feelings of hopelessness and worsens the individual’s belief in themselves and their abilities.

So you, like many people may believe you lack confidence or don’t have enough confidence, as though it is a definition of who you are.

NO! Thinking confidently, like any behaviour, comes and goes with events. However by and large it varies with our own self questioning!

We don’t question whether we are confident watching TV!

All of us can be confident with things we’re comfortable with, things that we do everyday without question. If you always ask yourself, “Do I feel confident?” Chances are you won’t feel confident (you can be your own worst critic), simply because you have questioned yourself!Like any behaviour, confidence can be learned, and with hypnotherapy, you can change how you feel, retrain negative mental behaviours and learn new ways of simply just, being.

Learn how!

Learn how to feel confident and comfortable in your own skin! Of course, there will be situations and circumstances where your confidence will be tested, but how lovely would it be to welcome those times and events?!

Contact Tracey at Hypnotherapy Balham and start building confidence today!